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Buddy, Eternal Student

September 24, 2017

Buddy gives you a lot to work with. When the Compton-bred rapper walks into a room, you can feel his energy: intuitive yet completely sure of himself, flowing freely wherever he goes but not at all rootless. He stays grounded.

With such a big personality and multifaceted background (Buddy began his performance career at age 7 in plays and musicals like The Wiz and Dreamgirls), it’s no surprise that the rapper became Pharrell's prodigy at a mere 15 years old. Since then, Buddy’s ubiquitous air has landed him in places a young artist can only dream of, collaborating with the likes Kendrick Lamar, Miley Cyrus, Kaytranada, and Chance The Rapper.

It doesn't get to his head, though. If anything, Buddy is more interested in smoking a blunt with these collaborators and talking about life. "I’m just trying to gather as much information as I can and share it with others". With his debut full-length LP on its way, we're all for absorbing Buddy's boyish wisdom.

Congrats on Magnolia. It’s a great EP. How would you say this body of work compares to your previous ones?

I wouldn’t say it compares to it at all. It’s completely different—different producers, different mindset that I was in. I made it in a different time in my life. During Ocean & Montana, I had just moved out of my parents’ house and into my apartment in Santa Monica. Then for Magnolia, Magnolia is the street in the valley where I was working with Mike & Keys who produced the whole EP. It was a different energy over there. It was super factory vibes. We were in the studio, they would make beats, I would make songs—we probably made like 200 songs and just picked the most current five to put out that made sense. Now we’re working on a whole bunch of other music. It’s just a different time.

When I was working on Ocean & Montana, Kaytranada sent me a lot of those beats, and I was writing to the beats and recording them myself. I probably had two sessions with Kaytranada face-to-face where we were both there at the studio working. For the rest, I was with the engineer just recording by myself. So it was my own vibe that I set. With Magnolia, it was a bunch of producers all over the studio, a bunch of instruments, it was a whole other vibe. We had built a whole studio out with Nipsey Hussle in North Hollywood off Magnolia. There was something wrong with the paperwork, and the people who signed the lease had pulled the rug from under us and we had to take all of our equipment out of there and find a whole new studio. It was crazy. It was a specific time in my life that was completely different than Ocean & Montana. I wouldn’t compare it at all.

What was it like working with Kaytranada?

Well, prior, I had only worked with him twice. And he was working with me and another artist at the same time, so I didn’t get too much time with him. I invited him over on 4/20, I made key lime pie, we got high and watched movies, smoked dabs… We hung out as friends, but when we were working, he had me in the studio rapping over some beats, and he was in there with Mary J Blige one time. Another time, he was working with Cassie. And he was just bouncing in both sessions, working with a bunch of writers, so Kaytranada was just on some whole other shit. He was working with me and a whole bunch of other people all at once. I was just writing my raps over the beats, and he was making more beats and doing stuff with other people. That was what it was like.

Jacket by Willy Chavarria

Is it different when you don’t work directly with a collaborator?

Nah. He’s not gonna write my raps for me, you know? He’s not gonna be like, “Oh, Buddy, you should do this.” He’s gonna make the beat, give it to me, and I’m gonna make the song to the beat. That’s the collaboration. He’s just on a whole other way of thinking where he’s just working on multiple things at once.

He’s a wizard.

Yeah. I gotta do my thing, and he’s gotta do his.

I guess there’s an association with Compton-bred rappers maintaining a certain sound, but you’re very experimental in that each body of work you’ve put out is very different. You’ve worked with people like Miley and Kaytranada. Is it just your innate nature to explore these different realms?

I’m personally trying to break this barrier or stereotypical thought of the city. Everybody always expects a certain thing from Compton, and there’s so much more that comes out of there than just the little box that people put Compton in. It’s not just the rappers, it’s also the people that live there. People expect them to come off a certain way or to be a certain person because it’s the city that they’ve grown up in. People always ask me, like, where the bad kids hang out and try to talk about some fucked up shit when it’s just like, bad shit happens all over the place. It’s not just Compton.

It’s the reputation.

The rep that it has is not the rep that I have as a human being on earth. I’m born onto earth first, you know what I’m saying? I’m a human being, so all these cities and barriers that people build for themselves and others is hella weak. I kinda just be doing whatever I feel like.

I am definitely a big representation for my city, but I just try to shine a different light on it. I feel like a lot of people cast this shadow over the city, like, “Oh, it’s such a bad place. Let’s hear all the bad stories.” It’s never like, “Let’s hear about the triumph from the city.” You know? I just try to shine a positive light on the city because there’s so much good stuff.

Would you say that’s what Kendrick did with To Pimp A Butterfly, or as a figure in general?

Yeah, him as a person. Kendrick Lamar as a human being for sure did it for Compton. He was born on Earth, raised in Compton, and bypassed all the Compton stereotypes and is the king of the game right now. I just saw him at Day N Night. I got to perform at Day N Night, and then I got to watch Kendrick with my mom on my birthday. It was fire. Kendrick is the prime example of just doing better than what people expect you to do.

Did you work directly with him?

Yeah, I met him with Pharrell. It was so random. I was working with Pharrell, and the whole TDE walked in—Black Hippy, Schoolboy Q, Ab-Soul, Jay Rock, Dave, all of them. And I was still just an up-and-coming artist making songs here and there. I had this one song that Pharrell made that beat on, and he kind of just pointed to the booth and was like, “Kendrick? You tryna…” And that nigga took it as a personal challenge, jumped in the booth instantly, started rapping, and it was tight. I got this song with him called “Staircases” that was on the first mixtape I put out. I don’t even think it’s online anymore. You’ve got to dig for that one.

Suit by Vivienne Westwood

What do you do when Kendrick Lamar walks in the room?

I was just like, “What up?” I wasn’t starstruck or anything. He’s a human being, so I didn’t fall out or nothing. I was more excited to meet Schoolboy Q. I’m a big Schoolboy Q fan, and he had the weed, so I was like, “Ay, Schoolboy Q, what up!” Schoolboy Q taught me how to roll backwoods. He had a big old jar of weed, and I wanted to smoke, but he’s the OG so he’s just facing his blunts. He’s not passing his blunts or anything. So I built up enough courage after watching him smoke two blunts by himself to ask if I can hit the blunt. I’m like, “I’m trying to smoke, what up?!” So, he gave me a backwood, enough weed to roll, and told me to just have at it. So I’m breaking down the weed, and I had to learn how to roll backwoods by myself thanks to Schoolboy Q. Now I’m the best backwood roller on the south side of the Mississippi. Shoutout to Schoolboy.

It seems that you transform very constantly and quickly. Is this accurate?

Heck yeah. I feel like I learn something new every day. I’m an eternal student, you know? I’m just trying to gather as much information as I can and share it with others.

What state are you in right now?

I’m in album mode. That’s the state I’m in. I’m working on my album, and I’m kind of going crazy. I’m really debating on what I feel comfortable talking about on my album, how deep I’m trying to go, and what’s the through line of the whole thing to make sense with the other EPs I dropped this year. It’s a critical time. I have a lot of thinking to do. I’m super busy. I have hella interviews and photoshoots and shit. I’m about to go to Paris, London, Amsterdam, and Berlin, and then I have to go back to LA to finish recording my album. It’s just a lot to think about.

Yeah. But you can do it.

Yeah, I got this. It’s good.

Ocean & Montana and Magnolia were put out pretty close to each other. Was that just because you had so much music that you had to put multiple EPs out?

Well, I’ve always been working with Mike & Keys who produced Magnolia. So when I got the beats from Kaytranada, it was just like, “Oh, let me rap on these beats and put this EP out with Kaytranada. This nigga is tight.” I fucked with Kaytranada so hard, and he’s got an insane following, so I figured it would be a good look. And we fucked with each other enough to where he wanted me to rap over his beats, you know? So I’m like, “Damn, he sent me the beats! I’m ‘bout to rap on these.” So I did that one first, but I already had some of those Mike & Keys songs. I had been working with them constantly as I was writing the Ocean & Montana EP. It kind of all just happened and came together organically.

What can we expect from your debut full-length?

Unfair hit records. I don’t play fair when it comes to albums. There are just some instant classics on there.

How do you decide what songs to put on it? You said you’re in “album mode,” so are you constantly just thinking about every little detail?

Heck yeah. I trust my wings, you know? I consider my teammates my wings. Without my wings, I’m unable to fly, so I listen to people who have done this before. I’ve never made an album, but I’m working with people who have made albums before, so I trust their judgment. I’m around a good group of people that don’t got me out here looking crazy. It’s wonderful. They tell me what they think is tight, what they think is weak, and then I take all the weak shit out and keep the tight shit.

Cue the Smoke Machine

May 23, 2019

Twelve’Len’s new video just dropped, and it’s hard to take your eyes off of it—when was the last time a DIY video by an R&B artist was described as cinematic? The visual elements are similar to those of his music: informed by classics. The track is smooth with a savory thump, harkening back to pre-hip hop urban music that was groovy and easy-going, but brimming with heart.

office had a chance to catch the artist and speak to him about backyard babecues, Florida, and the current state of R&B. Check it below.

Interview by John Martin Tilley

So tell me about yourself and your work.

As far as with the music video, the video for “Thank the Gang” started off as a recording, a film recording for a festival that we have here in Miami called III Points. And I just went, and I picked up like a mid-2000s—no, I’m sorry—an early 2000s camcorder out of a pawn shop. I was just trying to shoot some footage with me and my homies for III Points that they could show on the projections. It was a really good show. I played, and then right after me, The Internet came on-stage and played, and then Tyler*.

So that’s how it began, as video for projections, and then we just kept shooting. I said I could do a performance in one of these scenes with this camera, and we actually just started shooting it. And I was like, ‘You know what? I think I want to shoot an entire video with this film.’ Because with the entire album itself that I’d been creating, it’s been built around a lot of 90s and 80s R&B aesthetic and also a lot of influences from Miami that didn’t get the light shined upon at its time. Like the DJ Uncle Al, you know? A lot of people know about, like, Uncle Luke when it comes to Miami culture, but they don’t really shine light on Uncle Al, who is the originator. So, a lot of this stuff is inspired by Uncle Al, like the sample that you hear at the beginning? That’s from Uncle Al. It’s more of the aesthetics of who I am, trying to create a balance in keeping R&B traditional, but still showing this essence of what colored culture, or urban culture itself, projects when it comes to R&B and alternative music. Because growing up, like you know, coming where I come from, I listened to a lot of Frankie Beverly and Maze and a lot of Al Green and Marvin Gaye. And those are the records and that is the music that was projected in our neighborhood that growing up—well, me growing up in my household—it’s what we listened to.

Nowadays, the music that is pushed more into the urban market is, you know, the more heavy-hitting hip-hop rap, you know, trap shit, you feel me? Which is cool, I enjoy it, but it’s kind of fucked up when you have an artist like myself that is doing something that is different from what the mass is doing, coming and being projected amongst our culture of the urban culture. So I get looked at, you know, weirdly at first, until you actually hear it, and you feel the soul in it. And you realize that it’s always lived within you, you know? Because you grew up on it. But we just been disconnected from it for some time, because of what urban culture has been projecting today.

Right, so it’s almost like a return to origins or an embrace of the past?

Yeah, embracing the past and embracing unity and loving one another and coming together, you feel me? Enjoying each other’s company, you know, like those backyard functions and those barbecues when you’re with your family. And when you’re with your lady, you know? When you’re out on your date just having a good night, having a good time, and just growing up. Getting past all the hype.

Part of what I liked about it is what you’re saying, it’s a very different theme just in terms of the lyrics, and the attitude of it is quite different and less aggressive than what is generally perceived these days as cool, like hip-hop, which can be almost jarring and intense sometimes. So it’s really connected to Florida as well?

Yeah, it’s definitely heavily connected with Florida, yo. I actually grew up across the street from the guy named DJ Chipman. He was a very known DJ from even way back in the late 90s as well. He had a few records that—well, not a few—he had a record that was featured on Family Guy as well. It’s like a dance record. It’s a dance record called Peanut Butter and Jelly.

Oh my god, wait, he wrote 'Peanut Butter Jelly Time'?

Yeah, that’s DJ Chipman, yeah.

Oh my god, no way. That’s crazy!

Yeah, so I actually grew up amongst these people as a kid versus a lot of these other musicians, you know, from Florida who know these records and grew up on it. I actually, like, grew up under these guys. They knew me as a child, you know? I knew Rick Ross as a child; I knew Flo Rida as a child. Like I was in the studio with Flo Rida and Rick Ross. I even did vocals for Trick Daddy as a child.

Wow.

Yeah. All of them’s from my neighborhood, you know? Like literally, from my neighborhood.

That’s crazy! So how old are you now?

I’m 26 now.

Okay, wow that’s so interesting. It’s always interesting when a specific neighborhood or a specific place sort of produces a lot of talent. How do you think that happens? Or like, how does that come about? Is it just from people bouncing off each other?

Yeah, I think it was because of people bouncing off each other, or it’s probably something in the water. I don’t know. It’s probably something in the water.

Do you feel a certain pressure to participate in more of the current, aggressive style of hip-hop?

I don’t feel pressure to participate or even dabble into it of any sort, because I grew up on it as well, you know? My favorite musicians would be like Al Green and Marvin Gaye. But actually growing up listening to music, if I had to select music to actually play, I mean, I played a lot of R&B. I played like—my favorite artist growing up was 50 Cent, you feel me?

Ugh, I love him.

Yeah, that was my dude.

He was like my conversion to hip-hop. Him and Kanye West.

[Laughs] Yeah, Kanye West, 50 Cent. Goodie Mob, Outkast, Tupac, like those—that’s what I listened to. Like when I do participate in, like, more of that type of style of music, it’s just like being home, you know? I enjoy the art, the rap music. I love it. Like I fucking love it, but we gotta still have a balance in which we have this area we can go to continue progressing in life instead of being in this one way. And that’s—I feel like that’s the piece I play in neighborhoods like my neighborhood. Outside of my neighborhood, that’s the piece I feel like I play to inspire. Those, I understand, are like, ‘Ay! You know, you a songbird, of course. But you don’t have to make this type of music.’ Like you’re doing something different.

But in all reality, this is the music that your parents raised you up on. This is the music that your mom played around the house, your grandmother played around. Rap music’s only been around for—it hasn’t been around that long. It’s been around what? Like 30 years? 30-35 years? So before that, all we had was soul and rock, you know? And R&B. But that’s my whole thing. It’s that you don’t have to feel like you’re being misplaced in trying to keep it traditional, you know?

Would you classify yourself as an R&B singer more than a hip-hop musician or do you dabble in both?

I mean, I dabble in both. But I would definitely always set my music in R&B, because that’s what I’m more—that’s what I’m true to.

You definitely don’t hear a lot of R&B these days. There was a really cool R&B moment a few years ago with Usher and Trey Songz.

I feel like R&B kind of got stale, because it stopped evolving. And now, R&B has begun to evolve again, because it’s pulling those great things that you like from rap and adopting it into R&B. So therefore, it can evolve once again, you know? It can emerge once again. You know, so you had, like, that whole era where you had—They call it “trap R&B.” Me personally, I don’t like it. I don’t like that. I’ll only accept trap R&B from Bryson Tiller, from The Weeknd, PARTYNEXTDOOR, Drake, and 6lack. Other than that, I don’t accept it from no one else. Because I feel like we shouldn’t have to adopt hip-hop so much into a genre and ruin the genre, you feel me?

That was my whole thing with creating my project, figuring out how to create R&B music and make sure when you hear it, you feel like, ‘Yo, this is R&B. But... it got a bounce.’ It makes it feel hardcore, but it’s R&B, you know what I mean? Like that was my whole thing. Trying to figure out how to balance it, in which I can evolve with traditional R&B. Like listening to Isaac Hayes or listening to Usher and making it today, making it modern, you know?

Check out Twelve'Len's new video, 'Thank the Gang' below.

I was trying to figure out how to create R&B music and make sure when you hear it, you feel like, ‘Yo, this is R&B. But... it got a bounce.’

Not Your Deity

May 16, 2019

Vōx isn’t falling for your God complex. While the LA-based singer-songwriter grew up struggling to coexist with the Lutheran ideals she was surrounded by, through creating, she’s reached the reflection point. While writing her forthcoming EP, ‘I Am Not a God,’ (slated for release on August 15) the artist pulled herself back into the past, remembering all the doubt she took on as a child saddled with guilt. “[I felt] I was too imperfect to be loved, even by God or whatever higher power was out there,” she told office.

She pushed back on those feelings over time, but they left their traces. And she’s transmuted them into something beautiful––her look these days evokes Björk-meets-Mary Magdelene realness: doll-like and soft and strange. And she finds inspiration for her moody, trap-infused melodies in the growth she was forced to cultivate. " 'I Am Not a God' is an exploration of self-love, being enough in my pure intentions," she said.

Trust Your Angels

May 14, 2019

Jonas Mekas was the truest champion of avant-garde and independent film. He arrived in New York from Lithuania in 1949 and spent the next seventy years of his life making, critiquing, praising and proliferating underground and experimental movies, thus inscribing himself into the city’s artistic lore.

He co-founded the seminal Film Culture journal and Anthology Film Archives, wrote reviews for the Village Voice, and gleefully skewered Hollywood films as gross, banal, and “second-rate art.” As the critic J. Hoberman puts it, “Every avant-garde, independent experimental-film artist in America is in some way in Jonas’s debt.” Go to https://expansion-anthologyfilmarchives.org/ to donate and learn more about the expansion project.

office was fortunate enough to have Nathan Lewis speak with Mekas before he left us in early 2019. He was 96.

NATHAN LEWIS — Is there any item in your workspace that you could not live without?

JONAS MEKAS — There is no one item. There are essential parts—the computer, it’s a basic item in any office today. If you are communicating with the outside, if you are just forced to do personal work and you never go out, your computer communicates for you, but that’s something else. But my life involves me being in so many different things.

NL — It’s much easier to connect to the whole world now with a computer.

JM — Yes, I am still very connected. But the telephone is something that’s not as important—I never use the telephone.

NL — Never?

JM — Never. To call or text sometimes.

NL — So mainly email?

JM — I operate with email. Or my website—that’s my technology department right there. You can see it. I’m totally in digital right now.

NL — All digital? So, when was the last time that you shot a roll of analog?

JM — 1988 or ‘89, 30 years ago. But when people interview me, they always talk only about [laughs]—I have been for 30 years in digital, and they’re still talking about the analog.

NL — So the last roll you shot was in ’88?

JM — Bolex. Bolex was 30 years ago. Yeah.

NL — Did you guys go to Sony straight away then, after the Bolex?

JM — Actually yes, Sony. Bolex is history, the film just came out. [laughs] But the history of the Bolex camera tells you that Bolex is part of history. The factory is closed, they don’t make it anymore.

NL — And you went through quite a few.

JM — I went through five Bolexes! One Bolex lasts seven years or so. The spring gets used up.

NL — And what about the Sony?

JM — The Sony changes every three years. [laughs]

NL — Really?

JM— No, I’m joking. Because the new digital technology, in order to make money, corporations keep changing their formats, et cetera.

NL — I think last time you shot you had, what was it, a Nikon? The little pocket camera you had?

JM— Yes, I had my current camera. This is it! This is my Nikon. Now it’s not Sony. Nikon. Nikon. Now it’s rolling. You are in. So, we are now where you can have in one pocket a pencil, and in the other one your camera. That was the dream of Cocteau. Where movie cameras become like pencils, then cinema will be equal with other arts. That’s where we are now.

NL — Did you ever think when shooting on a Bolex that those cameras were going to become so small?

JM — I did not think so, but it’s the natural development. Everything gets big, and then gets smaller and smaller. Even humans are smaller than when they began! The Neanderthal man, two million years ago, was much bigger, taller. We are shorter. Humans have become shorter, smaller.

NL — So, back to the question of your workspace, how important is this space to you as an artist?

JM — I do not consider myself an artist. That I should stress. Because I just like to make things, and they’re not necessarily art, they’re just something that I like to make. I like to make things. And people like to have some things that other people make. That does not help to make art. Art is a very vague, very nebular kind of term, I don’t like to use it. But I need this space because I do a lot of stuff. I wear many different hats. So I need a lot of space. Actually, telling the truth, I’m planning to move out. This place is too expensive. So I have moved out five truckloads already from this place. I consider it now almost empty. A lot of junk, because I do many things.

NL — When you moved to New York initially, because you were doing so many things, did you live and work out of the same space?

JM — Well, I was dropped in New York by the United Nations refugee organization. So I just had myself and a suitcase. And no place, no office. I slept in friends’ homes. Initially I was in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. That was 1950, ’51, ’52. And then in the spring of ’53 I jumped to Orchard Street, to Manhattan. I left Brooklyn in the spring of 1953, and never went back. It was miserable. It was the most miserable area of Brooklyn, Williamsburg. Now, Manhattan has conquered Williamsburg. Williamsburg is part of Manhattan, part of Wall Street.

NL — So you were in Manhattan for a long time?

JM — Until 2004.

NL — Why did you feel the need to leave?

JM — I had to escape it. It was too much like Wall Street. In Brooklyn there are still people, real people who are of many different nationalities, and it’s still messy. There are places that are still pretty messy. The best restaurants and eating places are in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is real. Also, Brooklyn is like an extension, like the new Paris, while Paris is becoming the new Brooklyn. So Manhattanites—keep out of Brooklyn.

NL — How do you feel just about the physical aspects of Manhattan?

JM — Boring. The buildings and everything are just boring.

NL — I just feel a bit too confined there.

JM— They have nothing to do with architecture, those buildings. Just boxes, just big, brick boxes.

NL — So has Brooklyn changed since the 1950s?

JM — I know that Williamsburg has changed! The rest, not that much. You see, Manhattan conquers, their tactic is piece by piece, smaller, and to constantly gobble up a specific part. I don’t know which is the next spot they are attacking but I bet they’re looking into other areas.

NL — What’s next to be gobbled? Maybe the Bronx?

JM — Hmm, Harlem! Harlem was actually taken at the same time as Williamsburg. But Brooklyn is still pretty wild, big, eclectic, which is good.

NL — Do you have a favorite building, besides Anthology [Film Archives]?

JM — Some people don’t like working in the museum—I happen to like it as a building. And then you see the Frick museum. I like museums where you walk in and you can see everything that is in it. And the Frick Museum is one of those, they have great pieces of medieval and Renaissance art, and you can see everything. You can see it twice! You can walk two or three times through it. You cannot do that at the Met, it’s too big.

NL — Every time we go to the Met it’s very overwhelming.

JM — But it is good that it’s there. There are not that many structures left around New York that are important as pieces of architecture. Maybe 10 or 15 throughout all of the boroughs. Usually small, little places. Others are important because of what’s in them, like the Frick. But the Anthology building is very special for downtown, it stands out a little, like it doesn’t belong there. Not only that, it is different and solidly made, because it used to be a courthouse and a prison. But now it contains over 30,000 very important works of cinema, of the art of cinema. So it’s a very important spot in New York.

NL — And it’s kind of a good point of resistance, as well.

JM — Yes, it’s a point of energy, it’s very condensed and rich. And it’s double-edged. It contains the history of cinema, of the art of cinema, and at the same time we are more open than any other place for the new, a lot of works from other countries and small areas, alternative forms of cinema. So it combines both. You have to respect and protect the past, and be very open to what’s happening now, to the new. And that is what we are trying to do.

NL — Can you give us any advice, on anything?

JM — I am not a thinking person. I just do things, I like to make things. I do it without thinking, so no thoughts. Keep them out. Be totally open, get all the thoughts out, permit the miserable, and the miraculous will come into it.

NL — That’s great advice. That’s it, you just have to be open.

JM — Yeah, good luck.

NL — [laughs] What is the latest thing you built?

JM — I’m building now! I’m building a library on top of the Anthology Film Archives building on the corner of 2nd Avenue and 2nd Street in Manhattan. I’m adding another floor, and on the side I am adding a café, which we need for our survival. And we need the library because we have a lot of paper and material that must be available, and it is now not available to those who need it. And that’s a big project.

NL — That’s a beautiful thing to do, for people to have.

JM — When everyone is closing libraries, we are building one.

NL — Thank you.

JM — $15 million, and we have $10.5 million, we still need the other five. So anybody who reads this that has access to corporations and individuals who love cinema and libraries, they can help us by contributing one, two, three, four million. [laughs] Oh, I should add, this is part of the fundraising for the library—this spring in April or May we are organizing a big fundraising event, and the main item we are going to sell is Allen Ginsberg’s beard! How about that! Allen Ginsberg’s beard that Barbara Rubin chopped off in 1962, and the filmmakers put it in a box and gave that box to me, and I put it up next to Allen’s books. And now it will be auctioned for $1 million, if you want to possess the beard of Allen Ginsberg, from which you can use the DNA to reproduce and make a few other copies of Ginsbergs! This is your chance, for $1 million, and you will help us to build the library, and you will own Allen Ginsberg’s beard.

NL — Do you play any instruments?

JM — I play harmonica, I play bugle, I have a lot of different instruments. I grew up with music.

NL — You scored most of your films yourself, right?

JM — Yes, every aspect is done by me.

NL — Where do you draw your inspiration from?

JM— No, I don’t like inspiration. The question is about being open, about permitting things to come in. Whatever I do from my own ideas, it comes out wrong. All the things I’ve thought like “Oh, I should do this,” it comes out wrong. I used to be very careful with one’s own ideas because the tendency is, you invent something, you want it to happen, you want it to succeed. Which is very different than what sort of comes mysteriously, I say like what angels are sending you. I trust my angels. But you have to be very sensitive to separate the two—what comes from mysterious infinities and what comes from your own head. Keep the head out.

NL — Keep the head out and leave it to the angels, right?

JM — Keep clean from all of the thoughts, yeah.

NL — So aside from Anthology and the expansion project, what’s next for you?

JM— I am in several, major projects right now, but I don’t want to talk about them. They keep coming up. I think there is one I can tell. You know about The Shed project? It’s a new, flexible—and the biggest maybe, in New York—performance space that is being built right now around 10th Avenue and 30th Street. It’s a very ambitious project. I am doing something for them. There will be a premiere of Eke’s Requiem, and I am doing the visual part for that, so that’s quite a big project coming out one year from now. Will it be good for New York or not—now that’s another question, because everything is becoming too big. And I think we should really go the other direction.

NL — Make it more intimate?

JM — Yes.

NL — I think you’re right. Because if you go see a band at a huge venue, you don’t really take anything away from it. But if you are in a small, intimate space you normally gain a lot more from it.

JM — Maybe both are a circus. People need both the intimate, and they need the circus